Daily Archives: July 6, 2014

Recently in the neuroscience community there has been a lot of talk about Mirror Neurons. These neurons fire when you watch a performance and again when you perform the same movements. Scientists speculate that mirror neurons help us understand another person’s intention, empathize with them, and help us learn by imitation. If you have ever watched a dancer, and could feel what the dancer was feeling, that’s Mirror Neurons in action. Mirror Neurons give us the ability to watch a performance and understand the mental state of the dancers, what the dancer may be feeling, and make us better at performing those steps.

As you watch a few published Choreometrics videos and experience the vast culture in these eclectic performances, you become one step closer to understanding the culture and you grow a connection with the dancers. Many Choreometric performances are raw footage of people being themselves and expressing themselves through movement. Imagine watching a performance of a 16 year old girl in the 1960’s from an isolated village in Mauritius, and being able to get a glimpse of her struggles and her celebrations- that is what your brain is capable of. The reason everyone needs to see Choreometric videos in today’s emergent globalization, is not only to preserve the history and the culture, but also to facilitate communication. We need to be able to understand each other’s background and development, and what better way to do that than, to allow our brains to decode these performances in order to understand the intention behind the dance.